Elbit Systems Awarded a Contract to Supply DIRCM Self Protection Suites to Airbus Defense and Space for the Installation on MRTT A330 Aircraft for Canada

Sur le même sujet

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  13 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  Rafale jets won’t save India’s air force

  The first five of India's new Rafale fighter aircraft touched down in country on July 29. According to the terms of a 2016 contract with the French manufacturer Dassault, 31 more will follow. They will go some way toward filling India's larger requirement of 126 such jets. The Indian Air Force has long needed refurbishing, but it has been perennially delayed both by New Delhi's infamous bureaucratic red tape and by budgetary issues. Now, the arrival of the new fighters—the first in over 20 years—in the middle of an unprecedented border face-off against China, will be a boost for Indian military capability as well as morale. But it won't do much to change the hard reality that, as an air power, India is falling far behind, foreign media report. The Indian Air Force has historically been one of the best-equipped air forces in the region, but it has seen its advantage, both qualitative and quantitative, against China and Pakistan narrow dramatically over the past two decades. Even worse, it now faces the challenge of mustering enough aircraft to tackle any possible collusion between the Pakistani and Chinese air forces. Related to tensions in Ladakh, China seems to be activating air platforms in its Tibetan airfields. And along the border with Pakistan, the Pakistan Air Force recently conducted an air exercise out of the Skardu base in Gilgit-Baltistan. Taken together, those are tough challenges for an underequipped air force to take on. The Rafale may help somewhat. After decades of fielding upgraded legacy fighters and struggling to develop contemporary jets, the Rafale finally provides the Indian Air Force with a comprehensive combat craft that requires very little further tinkering. Unlike any previous procurements, the Rafale fighters' capabilities are already up to par, and small enhancements will be relatively easy and cheap via the so-called India-specific enhancements. These India-specific changes are being carried out under a concurrent design, modification, testing, and certification program carried out by Dassault. The modifications involve a mix of hardware and software changes, including an improved infrared search-and-track capability, the addition of an Israeli helmet-mounted display and sight system, changes to the electronically scanned radar, a new device for jamming low-band radio frequencies, integration of an Israeli-created decoy system, an upgraded radar altimeter, expanded navigation aids, and a more robust cold start system for the engines to make them suitable for winter operations from the Air Force's Himalayan bases. Once all changes are tested and certified in 2021, the entire Indian Rafale fleet will be updated. This allows Dassault to keep producing fighters at an economical rate and the Air Force to induct jets and train personnel in an organized manner, while still ensuring that the final aircraft does not compromise on the original capability requirements. https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/699521-rafale-jets-won-t-save-india-s-air-force

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  29 octobre 2020 | International, Sécurité, Autre défense

  Will COVID-Stressed Countries Slow Their Arms Buys?

  State Department's political-military leader sees mixed signals from abroad. Marcus Weisgerber The coronavirus pandemic might prompt U.S. allies to restructure arms deals for American-made weapons, a top State Department official. But R. Clarke Cooper, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, said there is still an appetite for U.S. weapons overseas — especially F-16 fighter jets and Patriot missile batteries. “If we're looking at long-term modernization plans across the board, we're seeing what I would say is [a] steady state in that place,” Cooper said Wednesday during a virtual Defense Writers Group meeting. Since April, the State Department has approved more than four dozen foreign arms deals with a potential total value of more than $91 billion. But just because the sales were approved doesn't mean they'll come to fruition. In some cases, U.S. companies are competing against one another and/or overseas firms for contracts. “On big-ticket modernization, while some states...may have looked to re-frame or push right to a later date particular procurements, we've not seen dramatic changes in their planning,” he said. “What it may mean is how they sequence certain procurements.” Germany last month canceled a multibillion- dollar helicopter competition between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, calling the project too expensive. At the same time, Switzerland recently moved forward with a competition to replace its F/A-18 Hornets. But economic pressures could prompt some countries to adjust payments schedules, Cooper said. “Based on their national budgets, [countries] might seek some sort of dependable undertaking,” he said. “Some states might seek foreign military financing or grant assistance.” By the way, Cooper added, the economic downturns could result in more NATO allies meeting the alliance's goal of members spending 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense. “Bizarrely, we may have some states where their numbers look like they've had an increase [in defense spending] because they've had a drop in GDP,” he said. https://www.defenseone.com/business/2020/10/will-covid-stressed-countries-slow-their-arms-buys/169642/

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  5 septembre 2018 | International, C4ISR

  Next-gen RFID could improve how vehicles get to the battlefield

  By: Adam Stone With incredible volumes of material on the move – think: arms and munitions, supplies, vehicles – the military quite simply needs a better way to track its stuff. “We hear a lot of concerns about getting in-transit visibility in the last tactical mile, from the supply point to the end user,” said Jim Alexander, product lead for automated movement and identification solutions in PEO EIS – Enterprise Information Systems. “We are working with our partners and with transportation command to gather up the requirements for the next generation of in-transit visibility for DoD.” At the heart of transit tracking today is radio-frequency identification (RFID), which allows logisticians to tag and track goods on the move. But RFID has its limitations: It's infrastructure intensive and not globally available. Military planners are looking to do better. Falling short RFID technology took a big step forward about 20 years ago with the widespread adoption of “active RFID.” Rather than scan individual items by hand, active RFID uses a fixed scanner to monitor entire lots. You'll see this equipment at airports and at the gates of military installations. But active RFID isn't an ideal solution. “It consists of a dome-shaped reader on a pole, connected to power and ethernet. So you are running power lines and communication lines, and if the reader goes down someone has to go out and physically service it,” said Rosemary Johnston, senior vice president of government at solutions provider Savi. The company is sole provider for the DoD's RFID-IV contract, which has a $102 million ceiling. “Each reader costs a couple of thousand dollars, plus the cost of hooking it up, running wires via trenches. It becomes a major construction investment project,” said Johnston, a former chief master sergeant with the U.S. Air Force. In addition, active RFID equipment isn't necessarily well-suited to today's highly agile expeditionary fighting style. “The military doesn't know where the next fight is going to be, so they use portable deployment kits rather than do this massive construction, but even those are heavy ― the lightest weighs 25 pounds ― and they require good satellite coverage. It becomes very resource constrained,” she said. With the next-gen RFID contract, the military envisions a better way of doing business. A cellular solution Satellite-readable RFID tags offer some relief, as they expand the military's reach without requiring extensive additional overhead. But satellite time is costly. Savi's emerging solution would leverage widely available cellular signals as a new means to capture and communicate RFID information. Johnston describes early trials of cellular RFID in Africa, where materials tracking has been a perennial problem. U.S. and European forces have just six fixed RFID readers on the entire continent, making supplemental coverage an urgent need, she said. “We have used cellular technology in Africa with a commercial company very successfully for the past three or four years. The networks we would use on the military side would be very similar to what this commercial customer uses, so we believe that represents a great opportunity for Africa Command,” she said. The switch to cellular isn't technically complicated: military planners would need to add a cellular module to the existing RFID tag. That module could then be programmed to automatically report location status to the military's in-transit visibility server. High-value cargo might report hourly, whereas more mundane supplies could be set to check in daily or every couple of days, in order to conserve battery life in the RFID tag. At PEO-EIS, Alexander said he sees strong potential in the technology. With a cellular system, “you could get a much more granular look, a more detailed look at where my stuff is,” as compared to relying on fixed checkpoints, he said. “If you have sensitive cargo you can know where it is every hour on the hour, as opposed to waiting for that cargo to pass by a fixed site.” Some technical details still need to be worked out in order to implement a commercial-grade cellular solution within the military. For example, “you don't want to have anything in the device that would trigger a static charge if you are working around ammunition,” Johnston noted. “We are working through that process right now.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/it-networks/2018/09/04/next-gen-rfid-could-improve-how-vehicles-get-to-the-battlefield